The 'Objectionable' Cake Ree Drummond Decks The Halls With Every Christmas

Ree Drummond may not look like the stereotypical Mrs. Claus, but she sure makes a big deal of Christmas on her TV show. In fact, in 2021, she even starred in a Food Network holiday movie called "Candy-Coated Christmas." It comes as a bit of a shock, then, to hear her call her favorite holiday rum cake "patently objectionable and morally repugnant." Yes, those are the exact words she used to describe some of the cake ingredients on her Pioneer Woman blog, though we're not sure whether these are in response to actual complaints she's received. It's possible she's just pre-canceling the cake so she doesn't get blindsided by another controversy such as the one that erupted when she cooked what she called "Asian wings" and then seemingly implied they weren't as good as "American-style" ones.

Drummond doesn't say which cake ingredients might get people's knickers in a knot, but it's possible that rum might be among them. Alcohol has traditionally been forbidden by many fundamentalist Christian denominations. The Drummond family is Presbyterian (the recipe is from her mother-in-law) but Presbyterians are allowed to drink, so then again, maybe not. As for the other ingredients, vegans might not like the butter and eggs, but little of what Drummond cooks is strictly plant-based, so why would they be watching her show or reading her blog? Maybe she suspects people might get upset by her use of boxed cake mix and pudding, but surely no one gets bent out of shape over sugar and canola oil.

Okay, for argument's sake, let's assume that you do find one or more ingredients in Ree Drummond's rum cake to be morally repugnant, for reasons of your own. If you belong to some kind of creed that holds pecans to be sacred, you could always use walnuts instead. Drummond says it's okay to skip the nuts altogether, anyway. If your ethics won't allow you to consume animal products, there are plenty of plant-based butter and egg substitutes on the market. Should you be so finicky as to object to boxed mixes... Psshh, you don't need this recipe, you've probably already got a handwritten bible of from-scratch cakes and might even be distilling your own rum.

And there we come to the crux of the matter: Can the rum in Drummond's rum cake be replaced? Why, sure it can. In fact, faking people out with substitute booze has presidential precedent, since Rutherford B. Hayes' favorite drink was a nonalcoholic "rum punch" that he used to fool his less-abstemious guests. While his chef likely used rum extract, these days we also have the option to use non-alcoholic liquor substitutes like the ones made by Ritual. Another company with a strong line of zero-proof spirits is Lyre's, including one perfect for making un-rum cake.